Strawberry Mansion

Just a hair under 10mi (9.89 according to GMap) in 1h15min. This is not really a good taper workout, but I felt strong today. I felt like I had many more gears, but I kept it reined in until the last mile from the AM to the Chestnut Bridge, where it was too fun not to kick a little. Cooled down with a short (7min) bike.

I'm so ready for Sunday. I'm not in 65 minutes shape, but maybe I can do 68 minutes (=BQ pace according to McMillian's calculator) if things come together. A realistic goal is under 70.

Pottruck

Did an easy Monday workout: 3mi (about 1.5mi easy warmup, then 1.5mi up the ladder) which felt snappy and easy, then full upper body circuit.

I am not going nuts.

I took an unexpected goose egg this week (Wednesday) and didn't run as long as planned on my hard day (Thursday). But even though I just wrote in the last post that I'm happy with a high-quality, low-mileage week, I've been sitting here scratching my head wondering how I'd ended up with only 37 miles! It didn't seem right...

... and it wasn't. I forgot to map and log yesterday's workout. It was indeed more than 6 (6 1/3 miles), which puts the week at a somehow more respectable 43 miles.

The Loop

Last Night: Rode my bike a little under 20mi in a little under an hour up a new route towards Chestnut Hill. Up Lemon Hill to 33rd to Strawberry Mansion to Chamounix to East Falls to Henry to Schoolhouse. Back via Lincoln Drive (huge mistake! Even though I was riding consistently above the 25mph speed limit, cars were whizzing by at 45-50 and honking! Oops) to Kelly Drive.

Then hit the Orchestra for a somewhat restrained performance of my favorite violin concerto (Sibelius). I'll miss Eschenbach.

Today: Last long run before BSR next Sunday. I know I can't do anything for my fitness between now and then, but this run was a nice confidence booster. I didn't push hard, but all my splits came faster than usual. I hit the East Falls Bridge in 40:30 (vs. 42:xx usually) and, the fairy / US Grant statues in just a few ticks over an hour (vs 1:03-1:04), and the end of Boat House Row in 1:08 (vs 1:12ish.) Total was 11.5mi in 1:23:4x.

My mileage this week was less than I would have liked, but I'm OK with that. I got my quality workouts in, lifted twice, and got a good bike ride in yesterday. I'll take a week like that over one with gaudy mileage numbers anytime.

Sweetbriar

I was hoping to get up early and ride, and then run late, but I slept in and there are T-storms forecast, so I figured I'd better get the running in.

Did a slightly extended Sweetbriar Loop, just to even with US Grant on the W River Dr side. 46:00 even. That better %#@$ing be 6 miles.

I'm spending $151 on race entries between yesterday and today: BSR of course, and bought a lottery ticket for the New York Marathon. I'll know if I get a spot or not in mid-June.

Catchup

Missed a few days.

Wednesday: Came home around 5, intending to run, curled up with The New Yorker and fell asleep. Woke up at 10 to eat some dinner, then slept some more. Guess I was tired.

Thursday: Speedwork. 2mi warmup, then 5x800 with .15mi walking between each rep. Total was 5.25mi in 42min. I tweaked something on the 5th, so didn't do the 6th. Finished with a full leg lifting circuit.

Friday AM: Did a morning run with Jeff and Drew. We went down to the Delaware (Front St) and back. I'll have to GMap it, but I think it should have been at least 4 miles. [Update: it is 4.5 miles.]

Friday PM: Still a little antsy, so went to Pottruck and ran a couple of miles to get the twitch out of my legs. 14:30 on the nose I think.

Montgomery Loop

Did my usual Tuesday run: Montgomery Loop via Mantua. Started easy, then sped up on the Concourse to what felt like tempoish pace (a 6:40 on the measured mile on MLK Dr). Went easy from Chestnut Bridge back to Pottruck.

I'm afraid that I might be entering overtraining territory. Last week had two days with more than 13mi, and I feel like I'm recovering a little slower than usual?

Yo swarthy stocky Slavic dude...

... please stop following me around the gym? Maybe I'm just paranoid, but when I was doing the stair thing earlier this winter, you'd always get on the machine next to me, whenever I shower at the gym, you always seem to appear, and now you've decided to be a runner (uh, you're not--runners can usually go for more than 30 seconds at a time and never hold on to the bar, k?) Alright, I don't know if I actually have a stalker, and I really have 0% homophobia ("some of my best friends are gay!") but this dude--mostly just the intense staring--creeps me out. I got on the treadmill today and after he materialized on the machine next to me I could I could see him looking over ever few seconds in my peripheral. Treadmill etiquette dude!!! I guess this is what it is like to be a girl at the gym and is why I keep my eyes to myself as much as possible (to the point of not noticing when I'm on a bike next to a friend.) Ok. Rant over.

Ran 2mi on the treadmill before I got fed up with the above situation. Headed outside for a Spring Garden loop. Call it a conservative 5.5mi in 41 flat. Finished with full upper-body circuits.

ps. I swear, sometimes Wilco resonates with the harmonics of my soul. I love that band.

pps. Let's Barack the vote ya'll.

Near-death Spin

I forgot to mention that I did two QCW loops in Fairmount Park around dusk on Saturday: across Girard St Bridge, up,up, up the hill at Landsdowne, past the Civil War Memorial and across the Concorse, up, up, up St George's Hill, then Chamounix, down, down, down the hill on Ford Rd, across Strawberry Mansion, then around the Reservoir to and back across the bridge. This loop is a lot of fun and about as hilly as you can get while staying in Philly proper. As always, I think the bike ride helped loosen my legs up for the long run on Sunday. Hooray for biking! The numbers: about 20mi in about 1hr. (I was surprised at how much pep my legs had--was doing 24-26mph on the flats without working too hard.)

The only bad part of the ride was, oh yeah, almost getting killed. On the downhill on Ford, the road gets narrow and the shoulder is quite dirty, so I moved over and rode in the single lane. I was moving faster than the speed limit, so this shouldn't have bothered anyone. But as a Chevy minivan was passing me on the next uphill (when I'd moved back to the shoulder) the driver scooted over so he was driving IN the shoulder. I guess he thought he'd teach me a lesson or something. Anyways, I looked up and there was this van about two inches from my handlebars. SO not cool. I caught up with him at the next light and just looked over, trying to see if he'd done it on purpose or was just absent minded. I got my answer when he rolled down his window and shouted "get off the road!" Seriously?

Forbidden Drive

The plan was to run for one hour, or to the start of Forbidden Dr. As it happened, I hit the Forbidden Dr parking lot right as the clock ticked 1:00:00. The return leg is a little shorter, due to the big inside bend around the Columbia Bridge. 15.5mi in 1h58m.

Botched

Yesterday: Rest day. Walked around NYC quite a bit, but no running.

Today: I was planning to run the Clean Air 5k, but after waking up at 6 to have breakfast, I climbed back into bed to grab a few more minutes of rest and ... woke up at 9. Damn. So much for being a lover of mornings, eh? It's actually not so disappointing: the past few days have been busy (cranking hard on TopSecretProject, went to NYC yesterday for DB/IR day and hung out with John+Lia) I'm not sure I was ready to run hard and I don't like paying $30 for a 3.1 mile training run.

The actual run: a Sweetbriar Loop at high noon and maximum heat (mid-80s). Call it a sweaty six.

I may head out for a spin when it cools down a little later. We'll see.

Inveterate Lover of Mornings

Woke up with the sun at 6, and was out the door by 6.15. I ran the AM Loop, which is 3.91 miles (not 4 as I'd been assuming--it's exactly 2 at the turnaround, but I usually walk home from 22nd and South.) I wasn't hoping for anything other than an easy run, and I didn't bring my watch anyways.

Better

Ran the 34th / Lansdowne / Concorse / Belmont / Montgomery / W River Dr / Schuylkill path / Chestnut loop. Yesterday's low mileage and new shoes gave me a little bounce: 8mi in 57 and change.

Pottruck

Oy. I was a bit stiff today. Ran 3.5 on the mill and it took me an extra minute (26). Finished it off with a full upper lifting circuits.

Now that the weather is warming up, I want to shift my workouts to the mornings. I've been waking up with the sun anyways (so 6.30 today) and pretty soon mornings will be the only time cool enough to run.

Monday 14

I ran out to Manayunk to sub for the Joy of Sets. The other team was actually good! We beat them 2-1, and I was a little sad not to be playing this season. Oh well, there will be plenty of grass ball closer by now that the weather is nice, and I can't really afford the time to get out there. The run home was a little bit of a slog at the end, but it felt good to run long.

Totals: 14mi in around 1h47m, with a 1hr break for the game in the middle. (This week may have gaudy mileage numbers due to shifting last week's long run to today.)

Weekend

• Friday: Very light vb practice at Hutch with Pigs.
• Saturday: Wharton Tourney, ran 4mi after.
• Sunday: Very sore. Only did 3.5mi.

The Wharton Tournament was a lot of fun--better than expected. About two months ago I'd hoped that we might be able to put together a Pigs dream team and win it. But with Matt moving to UCSF, Andrew busy with Spring Fling, and Darren out of town for a wedding, just getting six together took some doing (full credit to Clement.) We went with Tim at setter, Ashley opposite, Clement and Jethro outside, and Chris and me in the middle. Given this rag-tag group of players and positions (no true setter or middles--we're basically a team of OHs), I was really pleased with how we did: beat the teams we should have (Columbia and Harvard) and one that was better than us (Chicago), and gave Wharton Red some trouble in the semis. Everyone played well, I thought (Jethro was not his usual self, but had been up all night, and was nursing a shoulder and hamstring injury, so understandable) but Tim was truly great. Whatever he lacked in setting experience he made up for with hustle; any success we had was due to his amazing effort.

With the volleyball "season" is done, it's time to get back to some serious training. Two more hard weeks, then a taper week, then BSR!

Hills

Thursday, according to Nate's Wingin' It BSR Training Plan®, is speedwork... and hills were on my mind today. 2mi warmup up the hill on 34th and past the Zoo to Sweetbriar. Then 7 repeats of the hill from the overpass to the stop sign where Lansdown meets 41st by the Civil War Memorial. Each repeat went like this: sprint up from the bridge to the stop sign, then turn around and jog easy back down to Sweetbriar, then turn around and pick it up to a sprint by the overpass. I was only gonna do 6, but I got confused at 4 (thought maybe I'd only done 3; counted splits on my watch back at the gym.) Then down Black, and back by W River Drive / Shuylkill River Trail / Chestnut.

10.55mi in 79 minutes total time.

Broke in the new 2130s today. AMAZING. I love new shoes.

Sweetbriar

Just over 6mi, unknown time.

Hutch, VB, Columbia Bridge

Ran Home -> Hutch, played a few hours of vb (have been dragged onto a team for Wharton Tourney), then did the Columbia Bridge loop. Eight and a quarter total miles, 52 minutes for the last seven and change.

Pottruck

Monday, easy day. A surprisingly brisk-feeling 4.5mi on the mill in 33min, then upper body lifting (legs on the schedule, but was feeling creaky, so swapped it for end of the week.)

A slow, slog of a Loop

It's always a bad sign if I tuck a SEPTA token into my arm strap wallety thing: I don't do it unless I am afraid of getting stranded many miles from home. I started the day with the idea that I might do a SuperLoop, or even make it into the Wissahikon. But then I got out, very stiff, and sluggish, and settled for the regular kind of Loop.

Forgot to start my watch until I was on the trail. Call it 10.75 in 1h20m-ish.

36 for the week. You can see the hole that ICFP left in the middle of my week.

Strawberry Mansion

I love this bridge. 9.5mi in 1h11m = 7:30 pace on the nose.

The Wagner was amazing.

Pottruck

I lifted a little after the Montgomery Loop on Thursday, and I was surprisingly sore on Friday. I hate lifting, and always neglect it. I try to remind myself how much muscle I lost during my first training cycle for PDR. Lifting is important.

Anyways, Friday I just did 30min on the 'mill. I started at 7:30 pace and went down to 7:10 during my warmup, then started to hit the pace button every 90 seconds, finishing at 6:20 pace. In total, I ran something just over 4.25. Finished with a 3min cooldown @ 8:00 pace, chatting with the guy who'd hopped on the 'mill next to me: former Greenhills classmate and current Lauder student O'Day.

I'm planning to get some miles (10) in this afternoon, and then have orchestra tickets for Brahms (meh) and Wagner (woot!)

Double Digits

I switched my running log to Running Ahead last month. It's been nice having some better stats and analysis again, but Monday's 3.5 have been staring at me all week. Finally got above 10 for the week with the 8mi loop; Pottruck / 34th / Lansdowne / Belmont / Montgomery / W River Dr / Chestnut / Walnut. 59min even.

Publish or...

The last few days were a slog: we had to push pretty hard to get the ICFP paper submitted, but it went, and (although it could have used another editing pass, I'm sure) we think lenses modulo are pretty damn cool idea.

• Tuesday: DNR (and didn't really sleep either.)
• Wednesday: Submitted the paper at 4pm, was on the bike by 5pm. It was one of those weird days where my head was exhausted, but my legs were antsy. I did an 1hr loop through W Fairmount Park and the edge of the burbs. Wanted to find some hills, but mostly just felt like spinning my legs. Finally found the big hill off the back of Chamoniux. After doing those hills, the ride back to campus--via W River Dr, Sweetbriar, 34th--was nice and quick: speedometer was above 25mph for most of it (wind-aided, I'm sure, but still fun to go fast for a few.)

I'll run today.